_Mother._ What answer can be made to this?
_Mr. M._ It is a very common ground, and a convenient one, to answer the argument from _baptizo_, and the early practice of immersion in the Christian church after the apostles. No doubt the early Christians satisfied themselves with this reasoning, in departing from the apostolic practice of sprinkling. But I prefer to adhere strictly to the New Testament model. There is no immersion there. Now, is it allowable to depart from the original mode? This could not be done in the first initiating ordinance of the church,--circumcision. A departure from the prescribed rule would have vitiated the ordinance. But, does not Christianity differ essentially from the former dispensation in this very particular, that it does not make the mode of doing a thing, essential? Yet, it may be said, Human ordinances are all strictly binding in the very forms prescribed. For example: "Hold up your right hand," says the clerk, or judge, to a witness; "you solemnly swear--." Let the witness, instead of holding up his right hand, if he has one, and can move it, capriciously say, "I prefer to hold up the left, or to hold up both. I wish to show that modes and forms are unimportant." He would be in danger of contempt of court. If so small a departure from the mode of swearing would not be allowed, much less would he be permitted to kneel, or to lie on his face, unless he were some devotee. No; there is a prescribed form, and he must yield to it. It is also said, that, if there were cases in the New Testament in which it were doubtful, at least, whether immersion were not practised, we might argue in favor of mixed modes. But immersion is baptism, in my view, because a person who is immersed is sure to get affused; and, affusion with water is all of the baptism which seems to me essential. Leaving those who first departed from the apostolic mode of baptism by sprinkling, to answer for themselves, no one, of course, will deny that those who conscientiously think that they ought to be baptized by immersion, are acceptable with God, as well as others who are of a contrary persuasion. Paul speaks of "divers baptisms." There began to be such in his day. He speaks also of the "doctrine of baptisms" (plural), showing the same thing.